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Neural Priming
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Neural Priming |
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A Key Factor in Refreshing
Attention Part II Laterally Intermittent Neural Priming Nerve response weakens when stimulation is continual or prolonged, or repeated too quickly before the nerve can recover. Attention, focus, motivation, and enthusiasm are dependent on newly refreshed nerve activity. We learn faster and develop skills more easily when neural excitement is maintained. In contrast, our learning curve plunges rapidly when repetitive practice does not give nerves time to reset themselves and be “surprised” by the next stimulus occurrence. Everyone knows this feeling when they have stared at a textbook too long; the words on the page cease to have meaning. Athletes, performing artists and patients recovering from physical trauma also recognize when repetitive practice of motor movements feel “empty” and are ineffective.. Infinity Walk’s methodology creates a naturally produced switching of sensory and motor demands back and forth between the left and right brain hemispheres. The alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise walking, and between left and right eye tracking and neck reflex, shift neural priming to the opposite hemisphere. Hence, while one hemisphere is being freshly primed for any given stimulus, the other is diminishing neural response. The Infinity Walker (or Infinity Rider) can vary their pace around the figure-eight circuit to optimize neural priming activity. Optimal neural priming feels stimulating, but not stressful.
To appreciate the extent of sensory-motor readied flexibility that is simultaneously and alternately occurring in the two hemispheres, try doing Infinity Walk one step at a time. Stop at each step to observe how your eyes, ears, neck and shoulders, ankles, and so on, change their position in relationship to a real or imagined television. Each change represents new episodes of neural priming. The field of cognitive neuroscience has extensively researched how neural priming provides a learning advantage.(1) Infinity Walk is also a valuable method in education. To learn more about Infinity Walk as an educational tool, visit the USE IN EDUCATION pages of this website. To learn more about this topic, read Deborah Sunbeck’s 2002 text, Infinity Walk: BOOK I: The Physical Self. |
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(1) E.g., Liederman, J. The dynamics of interhemispheric collaboration
and hemispheric control. Brain Cognition 1998 March;36(2):193-208;
Gazzangia MS. Cerebral specialization and interhemispheric
communication: does the corpus callosum enable the human condition?
Brain 2000 Jul;123, (pt 7):1293-326. |
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Leonardo Foundation Press 151 Panorama Trail Rochester, New York USA 14625-1843 info@infinitywalk.org Copyright © Sunbeck, All Rights Reserved Infinity Walk® and Infinity WalkAbout® are US Trademark & Patent Protected |
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Imagine
yourself Infinity Walking while watching and listening to television, as seen in
the illustration. Continual Infinity Walking will create fresh neural priming of
each hemisphere through the alternating lateral movements of eye muscles,
rotation from neck to ankle, foot placement and so on.